CP5670

It was a good deal, but the standard ebay prices on that set are more like $500-600. Bricklink just tends to have lousy prices on sets of that era.

I think I just got lucky. It was a slow time of the year for ebay shopping and the item only had one or two other bids. I plan to integrate into it the rest of my monorail layout at some point.

On the flip side, they would in fact be used a lot within the theme. I often build MOCs based around TLG's official themes, for which these printed logo pieces are especially useful. As far as the official sets go, they can also be used across the entire theme instead of being specific to one set. The same arguments apply to minifigures specific to a theme, which we see all the time. Well, "vibrant" is a good thing in my book. It's what sets Space apart from themes like Star Wars. I like to see the contrast too though, and it's hard to achieve that when you have two very "bright" colors. I don't necessarily find the medium blue any worse than orange, although I would rather have not had the second color at all.

Has anyone else been playing this game? I spent the last two weeks with it and it's certainly the best game I have played in quite some time, even though I have long been a fan of the Deus Ex series and had high expectations. The story and atmosphere are very nicely fleshed out and there are several different ways to play the game and approach various situations, just like the original Deus Ex. I especially like how HR encourages you to explore the maps freely, since they have lots of little things to find and aren't laid out in quite as linear a fashion as most modern FPSs. HR does have its flaws and the last 20% of the game's plot is surprisingly lacking, but my overall impression was still very good. Now I need to figure out how to build an Adam Jensen similar to this.

Did it actually sell at that price or was it just listed? I got one of those for $260 off ebay only 2 or 3 years ago.

It's good to know that there is at least some printing in the theme, but there could have been a lot more. From looking at the Brickset pictures, I see a number of other places in those sets where control panels or generic ADU logos are stickers that could have easily been prints, if TLG wasn't trying to cut costs so much. The good prints from UFO I am referring to include the two control tiles (especially the oscilloscope, which is among my favorite prints from any space theme), the 2x3 computer slope and the UFO logo tile. I even like the 4x3 hinge panels in 6915 since they can be used as large display screens, although I am usually against printing on this type of piece. The big difference there is that all the fluorescent parts there were the same color, and you only had that one color sticking out. The trans-neon green by itself looks excellent but would clash with other, similar colors. A better analogy with PM would be if you had trans-neon green and trans-neon orange in the same model, with both colors having that UV reactive look on the boxes. Granted, I did think even some of the old themes had too many colors. The red in SP2 always seemed like one color too many, and I never liked the jumbled look of Hydronauts, which used practically every classic color somewhere.

Great finds. I love the clearance sale on that one. It's 33% off!

I haven't had many instances of this despite buying Lego from overseas hundreds of times. There was one case of an MISB 6986 where the seller claimed the package was damaged and returned to him, and he refunded my money. I think he was doing something shady though since he apparently told several other buyers similar things, going by his feedback. Most of these MISB sets on ebay are legit. Just avoid the buy it now items. The scammers usually stick to those, and they are never good deals anyway.

I wonder how much "error" TLG considers to be acceptable in angular connections. I think 3:4:5 and 5:12:13 are the only configurations that work out exactly (within the standard beam lengths), but they have used many other lengths and angles in official sets before, even long before studless building became common.

I would say the single best set from that era is 8455. That was arguably the first time TLG went all out and put in everything they could think of in a Technic set, apparently without regard to cost constraints. It felt like an AFOL-designed model. 8466 and 8421 are also very good. Unfortunately, the sets from this period are surprisingly expensive today and seem to cost more than 80s and 90s sets.

I like both but tend to use mostly angles in my own builds. I think an angular style generally fits in better with the studded look of Lego, but occasional curves do create a nice contrast from the angles. I'm not a big fan of those either. The top side often doesn't interface with the rest of the Lego system and they don't combine well in multiples as the old angular ones did, like on the SP2 sets.

I agree that UFO and some other themes around that time went overboard with very specialized printing, especially on rare and large pieces, but I would still take that any day over the complete lack of prints we have today. We got a couple of really nice printed computer pieces with that theme. I think printing also gives a much more high quality feel to the product overall. I like to see colors that contrast well with each other. Many space themes in the past achieved this by using at most one "bright" color, one or two "dull" colors (black and sometimes gray) and a colorful (not trans-black or clear) transparent color. Using too many colors diminishes this contrast. For Power Miners, lime green and orange were both bright colors and gave the theme a very jumbled look, even though either color alone would have looked fine. AC is not quite as bad but still uses too many colors for my liking. I do like the actual colors though. In fact, one of my favorite color schemes ever is that of the Mars Mission aliens. The models themselves were lousy, but I would like to use those colors for MOCs in the future.

The modern visors actually fit on the old helmets without stressing any parts. They look a little funny but swivel up and down smoothly.

Good point. It wasn't exactly a big earthquake though, only powerful by the standards of this region (Californians would laugh at this ). Lego models and some soap bottles were the only things that fell down at all here.

I am in northern Virginia and was surprised at how little of my Lego was damaged given how powerful it felt. A few models fell off their display shelves (things like the UCS TIE Interceptor that are prone to falling over anyway if the shelf is bumped), but there was no real damage to anything.

This is a great little freebie. I think all US Lego stores are giving them out with orders over $35. They actually gave me 5 of these guys with a large purchase, although that was during Brickfair and might have been an event promotion. I combined the binoculars with the gun as done on one of the sets in the theme. You also get an extra clear visor in each set.

This is an interesting discussion. Like many people, I rarely post in MOC threads because I have nothing to say beyond a generic compliment. I comment on MOCs that are exceptional or unusual in some way, so I can say something specific about why I find it special, as well as MOCs that are especially similar in style to my own and give me inspiration. I do sometimes have suggestions on how I would improve a MOC, but they are often related to my own particular preferences with building styles. Many MOCs I see fall into the "great, but not something I would build" category, so I don't comment. I certainly like looking at them though and seeing what kinds of things are possible with Lego. That's the kind of issue I am referring to. It would be pointless to mention things like that when they are obviously not matters of concern to the builder.

The trans-yellow is missing though. I think that is actually one reason I haven't warmed up to this theme as much as I might have. Lego Space just has to have colorful transparent windscreens in my book. None of this trans-black or clear crap.

I think AC is good but not exceptional. It was always going to be difficult for TLG to match the excellence of SP3. The AC minifigs are great (I have a bunch of these, which Lego stores are giving out for free with large purchases) and some of the sets are nice, but none strike me as a real "must have" the way many SP3 sets did. I plan to grab the alien minifigs off Bricklink, as they would go well with the SP3 villians. UFO had some good designs despite the big pieces. The largest set was weak but the others were better, and 6915 is still one of my favorites among any space theme.

Thank you. I've been trying to strike a balance between adding fine details to these models and still preserving the look and feel of the original themes.

Technic figures were phased out around 2003 or so, as well as the seats designed for them to fit in. Not sure why, as they fit very nicely into a lot of Technic models.

That is a nice picture. The translucency is often difficult to capture in a photo, even when it's apparent in real life. It's a more pronounced form of that same issue we have seen with many other bricks, from all of TLG's production plants, ever since the change to clear ABS pellets that you mentioned.

That particular set is actually a bit unusual. TLG not only changed the box style and color, but the picture of the model became completely different. I only have the Legoland version but have seen pictures of the System one too.

Yes, I don't think we saw a whole lot of changes in 2006 specifically, except for the quality reductions. The modern style City sets (6-wide vehicles, mudguards, cheese slopes, etc.) and varied minifig prints had already caught on a few years earlier. In Technic, the move to studless construction started way back in 1998 or 1999, and the current style of completely studless models began in 2003.

Thanks. I need to get some of those lights. They would look especially nice on the laser fence if I can figure out how to stick them in there. They are called "hose, ribbed 7mm D" on there. They were originally introduced in Technic and are most often seen there, but also appear in many other themes these days.